Being Qua Being 5 comments

18 Sep 2005 @ 05:01, by Uncle Remus Is there a reality? Are there many realities? Who or what, if anything, creates reality? Is there anything that has to be true about a reality, which might happen to exist, or can it be an indeterminate flux? The Ism Book is a "field guide" intended to help the reader quickly identify philosophical ideas as they are encountered "in the wild": Objectivism, Subjectivism, etc. The internet is a wonderful library. Use it as you will. The syncretistic reader (see syncretism) does his or her utmost to keep an expanding and fluid frame of reference. The obsessive reader develops a frame of reference so organized that it admits no middle ground ("Whoever is not for us is against us"), and elaborates a set of inferences about his or her readings in such a way that any implication of evidence that falls outside his or her beliefs is just simply ignored. The Humanist reader (see humanism) focuses centrally on human concerns (as opposed to the interests of the gods or the technical issues of philosophy---that is, as opposed to theism or logicism.) Interesting essay here: Reality is beyond the reach of conventional rationality and reductionist philosophies. A metaphysical view best understandable within the traditional dichotomy between 'appearance' and 'reality', though this in itself is another rationalization. A view that frees us from narrow reason without undermining it---retaining it as a useful mapping tool, with the ability to reveal partial truths and thus empower us in the world---while accepting that there is no rationally accessible Absolute Truth. Believing otherwise falsifies reality. The nearest we can get to absolute reality is thus the mysterious, non-rational, direct experience which we label as 'the spiritual' and objectify as spirit. An awareness of 'the spiritual' is an awareness of the true nature of the world. Lost? For the poets rather than philosophers, the 'spiritual experience' is the epiphany and the direct experience of the fullness of reality, the inexpressible situation that must be expressed at all costs. Beyond this it is the Aesthetic - the intuitive awareness of an underlying order, or rather an underlying chaos, or rather of both as one! Spirit is the foundation of every aesthetic experience that cannot be reduced away. The ultimate sense of reality is the awareness of the absurdity of what is called 'reality' and the humor of the actual reality it seeks to bury in its man-made dungeon. For the more 'worldly', spirit is our innermost reality, instinctual, unfiltered by thought. It is not part of the conceptual 'consensual reality' shaped by lazy, passive minds, by conventional thought and cultural preconception, but the source and motivation of our existence, that which we occasionally glimpse deep in ourselves as something of great value. Whether we regard this as 'visceral', 'biological', 'paraphysical', or 'mystical' is irrelevant to its reality and power. We can conceptualize it afterwards according to our tastes. The ultimate expression of spirit is the affirmation, as a supreme value, of the preservation and enhancement of Zoë ('embodied life') both ecologically and individually (a viewpoint completely agnostic on any other unexperienced forms of existence). Spirituality = Reality = Freedom

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